Synthesis - Classroom Collaboration

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Spacer1Inch.jpgClassroom Collaboration

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What do we already know about classroom collaboration?

Type of Group Activity

 Concerns a Teacher may have.

 Strengths

 How doe the group support learning?
Team problem solving, classwork tasks.
 Loafers
 Exposure to other learning styles, ways of knowing
 Individual strengths mixed.
Lab Groups (individual writeups
 Low productivity
 Socialization, (Cooperation, collaboration, respect for differences)
 Learning by teaching others. (sense making.)
Project Groups (notes, etc, + synthesis activity)
 Chit Chat
 Creativity
 Benefit from multiple perspectives.

Dominant Voice


Groupthink






Assembling Knowledge about Collaboration

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Collaboration:

  • The major source comes from the recent success in the American business
  • It is difficult for schools to organize this because of an enormous variety of ways in which small groups can be organized.
  • Teachers have to be:
    • Selective in their choices depending on their goals
    • Selective about the work that is to be accomplished in the group
    • Selective about how performance will be evaluated
  • Collaboration is not a useful tool for all aspects of teaching, should be used where applicable.
  • There is no one way to do Collaboration
    • -Aronson's Jigsaw
    • -Sharan's Group Investigation
    • -Slavin's Individual Accountability and Group Interdependence


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How Groups Work

  • Successful groups promote:
    • Student exchanges that enhance reasoning and higher order thinking
    • Cognitive processing such as rehersing, organizing, and integrating information
    • Perspective taking and accomodation to others' ideas
    • Acceptance and encouragement among those involved in work

  • For Groups to succeed educators must consider:

  • 1. Group Norms

      • pretraining for cooperation
      • listening and resolving conflict skills
      • teaching students to appreciate the skills and abilities of others
      • using rewards that promote interdependency

  • 2. Tasks

      • When tasks entail problem solving and involve more then one answer
      • students use critical thinking to explian problem solutions and phenomena
      • students make arguments to justify their thought processes

  • 3. Giving and Seeking Help

      • Help giving can benefit even high achievers
      • Help seekers do not always benefit from the help they get
      • Suggestions:
      • help students by crafting good explanations, giving examples, creating analogies, using multiple representations

  • 4. Accountability


    • Individual accountability and group rewards ensure cooperation and ensures that one person doesnt do all of the work


  • 5. Group Composition


    • Groups are successful when members are drawn from high and middle or middle and low achivement levels


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How do people learn in groups?

Main Point #1: Collaborative learning engages students in the construction of shared meaning helps advance the learning of disciplinary knowledge and understanding.
  • Supporting details:
    • The aim is to build communal knowledge through conversation
    • Interdependence is highlighted, little emphasis on group rewards to ensure cooperation

Main point # 2: Technologies increase opportunities for conversation
  • Supporting Details:
    • Experience indicates that students who do not typically participate in classroom conversations will participate in a computer based conversation
    • Conversations can take place in the context of digital artifacts
    • Conversations can be stored, reflected on and reacted to which creates a common knowledge base
Conclusion:
  • Peer learning can be a powerful tool, but it is not perfect.
  • Results can be positive when close attention is paid to norms, tasks, mix of participants, and their skills and methods to ensure accountability.

Applying Our Knowledge

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As the teacher in a middle or high school science class, you will probably have to address these "down to earth" collaboration issues.
  • Use the playing cards to choose a problem to address in your small group.
  • Follow the link to record your group's solution(s) to your problem.

1. Team members are not working well together and one student is begging you to let her out of the group. Collaboration Situation 1

2. Two students monopolize small group activities and the class discussions. Collaboration Situation 2

3. You are getting comments from other teachers or stares from people walking down the hall when they reach your door. The groups are too noisy. Collaboration Situation 3

4. One shy student doesn't want to work with others. Collaboration Situation 4

5. You have an ESL student (a student for whom English is a second language) who is extremely quiet. Collaboration Situation 5

6. Parents complain that their children are being cheated by having to work with others. One father says his child is gifted and is being held behind by working with students with less ability. Collaboration Situation 6

7. A student is habitually absent and consequently, doesn't contribute to her group's work. Collaboration Situation 7

8. A student complains that he has to do all the work for his teammates. Collaboration Situation 8